Selecting the right BI tool for your reporting and analyzing purposes is even more important these days with so many options. This blog will focus on the available SAP BI Tools for Reporting and ‘Dashboards & Applications’ purposes: Crystal Reports, Web Intelligence, Dashboards and Design Studio. All these SAP BI Tools have a different approach to help you better understand and analyze your data. Following is a quick overview of their different approaches:

Crystal Reports

A BI application used to design and generate pixel precise, formatted reports from virtually any data source

An open design interface and a powerful formula editor let you create simple reports/forms and also complex, specialized reports

The flexibility of Crystal Reports does not end with creating reports – you can publish/export reports in a variety of formats, including Microsoft Word and Excel, PDF, E-mail and even over the Web

Reports can be viewed and refreshed on the BI Mobile app

Application and web developers can integrate the report processing power of Crystal Reports in their applications

A very flexible Ad-Hoc Reporting tool that needs no installation if you run it in the BI Launch Pad of the SAP Business Intelligence Platform

Reports can also be viewed and refreshed on the BI Mobile app

Gives end-user the possibility for Self-Service BI to create their own formatted reports, change existing reports, use existing objects (dimensions and measures) to slice and dice and drill down in even more details

Dashboards

Dashboard applications are designed to look into the data on a highly aggregated level to give the user an overview/status of what’s going on

A very intuitive application for creating dashboards with effective visualizations of your company data based on a wide range of data sources

Can create applications with what-if scenarios

Dashboard applications can be exported to different formats including flash or HTML file, Microsoft Power Point, Word, Outlook and PDF and you will still have the interactivity with the data (if the data is included in the application)

Not designed for looking into details or for formatted reporting purposes

Applications can be viewed and refreshed on the BI Mobile app

If you are interested in creating a dashboard application, you should also consider Design Studio

Application designer can also create planning applications that support both manual and automated data entry and changes to data

Requires JavaScript and CSS knowledge

Based on the SAP BI Roadmap and the SAP portfolio simplification there will be only Design Studio in the future for dashboard applications

If your data source will be SAP BW or SAP HANA, you should strongly consider Design Studio over Dashboards

Ultimately, the right SAP BI Tool choice for your organization depends on what you are going to do. You need to know the data source, how you would like to view your data and the experience level of your users. So, you should ask yourself these questions in the beginning:

What am I going to do – reporting or dashboarding?

What will my data source be, or do I eventually have different data sources?

What level of detail do I want and need to see?

When you are looking for broadcasting, scheduling and publishing functionalities, you need to look at the reporting tools, which are Crystal Reports and Web Intelligence (in conjunction with the SAP Business Intelligence platform).

While this blog does not provide a comprehensive review of the capabilities and power of all SAP BI tools, we hope this is a useful overview of the solid SAP BI tools for Reporting and ‘Dashboards & Applications’. Your decision really depends on your preference, and this blog cannot give you a unique answer. Please contact us any time so we can help you select the right SAP BI Tool to fulfill your unique reporting, ‘discovery and analyzing’ or dashboard requirements.

Author:
Mario Randel

I am a Senior Consultant, Project Manager and Solution Advisor in the area of SAP Business Intelligence at itelligence North America and worked previously for itelligence Germany. I committed myself to always present customers the right and best available solution.
Before my time at itelligence I worked in a variety of Consulting and Management roles in the field of Business Intelligence, Banking, Asset Management, Compliance and HR. I have more than 16 years of different industry experiences, more than 7 years in SAP Business Intelligence and more than 5 years in Banking, Asset Management, HR and Compliance.
When not at work I spend most of my spare time with my family, doing outdoor activities like golf, tennis, motor sport, traveling or keep myself fit in the gym.